"A partition only!" "Bravo! Ah! but let us hear your idea." "Well, my dear, I have played princesses and I have played queens ... "And even empresses!" "Stop, that is for you to do." She lifted up to me her beautiful hand, which I stopped to kiss in its passage. "And even empresses!" I repeated. "All right, I want to play a woman of the people." "Yes! I know you! You would play that in a velvet dress and all your diamonds." "No! I tell you, I mean a woman of the people, a beggar-woman!" "Bah! Come forward as far as the footlights, stretch your hand out to the audience, and there would be no more play, or rather no more beggar-woman." "What pasture have you been browsing on to-day?" "On one which grew in your dressing-room one day when Harel shut me up to write _Napoléon."_ "Come, be quiet with you, and write me my play." "A beggar-woman.... We have Jane Shore; will that do for you?" "No; Jane Shore is a princess; I want a woman belonging to the people, I tell you." "I do not know how to draw such women." "You aristocrat!" "Come, have you a subject?" "I know some one who has one." "Send me that some one." "I will." "Who is it?" "Anicet." "This happens most luckily, for I owe him a play." "How is that?" "We did _Térésa_ together, and my name appeared; we will do your _Mendiante_ together, and his name shall be on it." "Oh! it is a regular craze with you not to give your own name? _Richard! La Tour de Nesle!_ You will end by only putting your name to bad dramas." "Do you mean that in connection with _Catherine Howard?_" "No, I said it ... at a venture." Some one knocked at the door. "Good!" she continued, "here is Harel coming to worry us." "Let us see. Come in; what do you want?" "I bring news from M. Gaillardet." "A second writ?" "No, the copy of a letter which will be in all the newspapers to-morrow." "Oh! leave us in peace!" said Georges. "Wait then, till I have read it you." "My dear Harel, I tell you you are disturbing us greatly." "I do not think so!" he said. Indeed, I was still on my knees in front of Georges. "Listen." He read-- "30 _May_ _"To the Editor._ "DEAR SIR,--Yesterday I was alone named as the author of _La Tour de Neste,_ to-day my name is on the playbills, preceded by two M's, and * * *. It is an error or a piece of malice of which I will neither be the victim nor the dupe. In any case, will you please announce that, in my contract as on the stage, and as, I trust, on to-morrow's bills, I am and intend to be the sole author of _La Tour de Neste._ F. GAILLARDET" "There!" said I to Harel, "that is flat." Harel unfolded a second letter. "Here is my reply," he said. "My dear man, the only answer you can make is to change the position of the stars." "That does not enter into my planetary system.... Listen." And he read-- "1 _June_ _"To the Editor._